Paying maintenance

[throwaway005]

Just putting it on here to see others thoughts

chatting with some friends earlier about child support and a father being involved with the kids. I kind of think I know how this will go but here goes

So I agree with abortion, many women get pregnant and keeping the baby for a variety of reasons doesn’t suit her. Contraception fails, rape, financial the list is endless and a woman should decide what is right for her and her body. Which is her right but what about the father’s right to choose whether to be a parent or not? I’m not talking about men that have planned pregnancies with a partner or have agreed to be a dad due to an unplanned pregnancy. I’m talking about the men who say right from the start they don’t want to be a dad or be involved in anyway. On the other hand a man can’t force a woman to carry the baby the take full responsibility when the child is born and the mother to pay support.

as it is right now whether they want to be involved or not and if they say straight off that they don’t want to be a dad should why should they have to pay child support? A woman has the choice to keep or end the pregnancy but a man is forced to go along with the woman’s wishes.

for the record I’m a female and I had an unplanned pregnancy (2 types of contraception failed) I spoke to the father and said I was happy to go it alone and didn’t want or need anything from him. I was late 30s and child free.

im not sure how it could be policed or what the options would be but something like the man legally signing away parental rights from the start of the pregnancy and the mother signing to agree she won’t chase it etc

so my question is AIBU to think that if a mother chooses to go ahead with a pregnancy and the father says right from the off that he doesn’t want to be involved should he then be free to walk away with consequences?

sex carries a risk of pregnancy. If a man doesn’t want a child with someone there’s tons of options to avoid this. If a child is created he has a moral and legal obligation to provide for it although many get away with not bothering.
in short, if you make a baby you should do all you can whether father or mother

He's the father. He needs to pay. And it's not maintenance. It's child support. The clue is in the name.

Since men don't carry the baby, they don't get to choose if it's born or not. So they need to exercise their right to choose by not having sex or by not having unprotected sex. I'd bet that almost 99% of men who end up getting a woman pregnant didn't wear a condom. QED.

I don’t agree or disagree there are so many arguments in favour as well as against. but how do you prove it - it would entirely be based on his word that he didn’t want the child and is therefore open to abuse that a man constantly changes his mind during the 9 months (which we know happens all the time!) or even uses it as a threat against the woman to coerce / manipulate - do want Ill claim I never wanted the child and will walk away Scott free. On the flip side a woman could get pregnant because she just purely wants a baby - also happens - but doesn’t want his involvement - so claims he never wanted the baby all along and is then able to walk away with the child when the father might well have wanted contact and to co parent.

The only sure way to avoid it though for a man is a vasectomy which might not be the right thing as he may want to have kids in the future

maybe I’m just thinking too much into it and I guess having been the woman who got pregnant when a condom and an IUD failed I guess nothing is fool proof

A man has every right to not impregnate. By not fucking, wearing a condom or having a vasectomy.

choosing not to do the above risks pregnancy and a baby

Men can choose condoms and or vasectomies. Sex carries risks so if they take them they bare the consequences

We all pay for children we didnt create, my taxes support schools, tax free childcare, child benefit etc. I didnt make those children but I contribute any way to society. I cant opt out of that. (I dont have a problem with that btw its just to illustrate society provides so why shouldnt dad) So why should the father, opt out when he actively created them?

im not sure how it could be policed or what the options would be but something like the man legally signing away parental rights from the start of the pregnancy and the mother signing to agree she won’t chase it etc

So you're saying that if both parents agree that the father shouldn't pay child support then he shouldn't pay child support. Well I've got good news for you! That's exactly what can happen today! They don't even have to sign anything - they just talk it out, agree that's what they both want, and tah-dah! the father never need pay a single penny.

Or is it more that the scenario you're really thinking about is where the mother does think the father should help finance the life he helped create whereas the father doesn't? If so, how do you think that should work?

But I was the woman with a baby to prove that, contraception fails (condom and iud). Neither one of us wanted to get pregnant it happened though

Exactly so why should the man be able to walk away when the woman can’t? It’s not as simple as ‘have an abortion’ for a lot of women, it’s not a nice process, and some women just can’t live with the idea of doing it. It’s not like the woman gets off easy either. And the child actually deserves input from the father even if it is just financial.

Did you pursue the father for child maintenance?

My ex stealthed me and slipped a condom off during sex. I didn't end up pregnant, but if I did should I have to go through an abortion because he said he wasn't prepared to financially support us?

Men know that contraception isn't 100% foolproof. Every time they have sex they risk an unwanted pregnancy just as much as women do. If a child is conceived it is never an accident so why should a man get to walk away at all? Don't want to pay child support, don't have sex with anyone you don't want to have your child.

Always blaming women for getting pregnant is misogynistic. Every man should pay for their offspring. Too many of them don't.

Well if you chose to have the baby thats good, thats what you should do.

If he wants to be involved thats great for your child and if he doesnt you cant agree not to take anything from him if you want

I guess I was thinking more along the lines of accidental pregnancy for whatever reason.

if the mother says I want to keep this baby and the father says from that first test I don’t want it. Then the mother thinks dad should pay for the child despite him having said from the start it’s not what he wanted.

I understand men go back and forth throughout the pregnancy or walk away when the baby arrives etc. 100% these men should pay.

the men I mean though are the men that have used contraception, for it then to have failed or for a woman to have lied to get intentionally pregnant. They have said right from the start they don’t want involved.

I guess something like legal paperwork signing over paternal rights but also the mother at that stage agreeing that she won’t chase him for child support.

I think a man not paying for a child he has helped create is a form of financial abuse.
I say man not paying because that is how it more often is at a population level. It is a form of abuse because the mother bears all the costs, whilst also usually experiencing the impacts of child-rearing on her professional and social life.
This does not have anything to do with abortion. There’s enough men already in the world who think they can coerce a woman into an abortion by threatening to walk away.

No as I made the decision based on me. It was with a man I had a brief relationship with and found out after we spilt. I was late 30s and knew it might be my only chance to be a mum.

I told him I was pregnant and gave him the choice for involvement. I was going ahead with or without his support. I also explained I didn’t want or need anything from him as it was my choice.

How would anyone be able to prove it though? That the sec was 1) consensual 2) used protection and that it wasn’t the man’s fault it failed 3) man said from year 1 he doesn’t want it.

Men could, and would, lie all the way along. And what if the dad changes his mind? Or what if the woman can’t afford to raise the child without maintenance? It’s such a stupid idea OP.

No, a man should be legally and morally obliged to pay for his child in the vast majority of cases. He had sex and he knew the risks. In most or at least many cases a condom hasn’t been used. And as pp have said even if you made it so that it only applied to those who hadn’t used condoms -how could this be proven if the woman claims no condom was used? Or what if a woman says the man removed the condom without her knowledge? Far too complicated and unworkable.

There are a few exceptions to this such as if the male was raped (I’ve seen a few cases of female teachers abusing their teenage and pre-teen male students and falling pregnant.) but that’s obviously not the norm.

And realistically speaking even if a woman is happy to let a man off the hook it’s often not just her who is picking up the tab, it’s the taxpayer.

No. A child is born regardless of whether it was planned or not. That child needs to be supported by both parents. Simple as that really.

So many dads (yes sometimes mum’s but keys face it the overwhelming majority is the dad) just abandon their kids.

I don’t get how someone could just wall out their kids lives and not care.

makes you such a shitty person.

If those were the lines you were thinking of, why did you give a completely different scenario in your first post?

It's weird how many times we get posts here that start off with a faux-naive "wouldn't it be nice if the balance was shifted just a little..." type of thing that then eventually reveal that the real goal is "wouldn't it be nice if men could walk away from the children they helped create without having to pay a penny."

"Signing over parental rights" is such a mealy-mouthed phrase that is actually bollocks. It's not "signing over" anything. It's "Running away from parental responsibilities." We've got way too many men walking away from their children as it is. The last thing we need as a society is to make it even easier.

I think if a man accidentally walks along a road, trips and his penis falls inside a female then it could be classed as an accident. I can’t see any other accidents that would lead to a child being conceived.

So the father of your child sucks and hasn’t provided anything for your child, and you took the decision for you and your child not to pursue him for child support .

What I don’t get is why you seem to be pushing for other men to be let off the hook? Surely you see your situation isn’t ideal?

I would say though that I think both men and women need to be far more careful about who they bring kids into the world with, so kids get the best chance of having two active, loving and present parents.

I definitely don’t think we need to push for men to have even less pressures to support their kids!

You are coming from this from your viewpoint as a woman in her late thirties, pro abortion and had two contraception fails. You could support yourself. Your career could presumably handle a maternity leave. You were presumably living independently. If none of those were in place, you might have either not let him off the hook or got an abortion.

It isn’t there to protect someone pregnant against all odds but still OK. It’s there to protect women who will not be OK. Women who haven’t had access to contraception. It’s there to protect women whose partner won’t wear a condom because they “don’t like the feel of them”. It’s there to protect women who might have insecure housing. It’s there to protect women who might have insecure employment or women who are discriminated against for their pregnancy or women who can’t make their current job work around solo childcare. It’s there to protect women who don’t want an abortion. Nobody should be forced to keep a baby they don’t want but equally nobody should be forced into an abortion they don’t want either.

Just because you’re alright, doesn’t mean thousands of other women aren’t. You don’t need it, that great for you but don’t argue to take it away from women who do.

You seem to think that maintenence is for the benefit of the woman, its for the benefit of the child.

Should a woman get pregnant she HAS to physically deal with that, and all of the repercussions to her body, and mental health whichever path she chooses.

You want men to be able to do what they want and walk away from any responsibility as well because the poor little soldier couldn't possibly expect to have sex with no repercussions at all.

You have a very misogynistic viewpoint and haven't considered the child at all in this either.